Wednesday 13 - Vocals Joey Jordison - Guitars Tripp Eisen - Guitars Eric Griffin - Bass Ben Graves - Drums
In a world where it's all too easy to point out everything that's wrong about music, Murderdolls represent everything that could be right. And with the release of their debut, "Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls," everything that will be right...
That may sound like a bold mission statement from a band whose songs include such frightfully decadent ditties as "Love At First Fright," "Grave Robbing U.S.A." and "Kill Miss America," but don't lose their point in the same self-righteous haze that's clouding over too much of the modern music scene.
"I think a lot of kids will be medicated by this record, because it's not just another record with the depressing lyrics," says Murderdolls guitarist Joey Jordison, all too aware that he's treading in provocative water with the new outfit, a drastic change of pace from his other band, Slipknot. "To me, that's the point蠾hat would be the point of doing something remotely like Slipknot? I don't play drums in this band, I don't wear a mask in this band, and the music is a polar opposite. While still being heavy, it's a breath of fresh air compared to what I normally do, because it's fun - It's catchier, more easily digestible, and has that fun factor to it, and there's nothing wrong with that, because everything can't be so heavy and depressed all the time."
"It's not like we're writing Weird Al Yankovic comedy stuff," clarifies frontman Wednesday, "but how do you take these Friday The 13th movies seriously? They put funny things into them, and it's like that with our songs. There's not anything on this record that's been based on personal experiences - They're all like short stories..."
So when the frontman sings, "I'd rather cut you than the wedding cake, and your bloody guts on my rented tux, and 'I do,' 'I do,' 'I do wanna kill you,'" he's not exactly making his case for the sociopath of the month club. Instead, he's offering us a slice of Americana through the eyes of the slightly disenfranchised. "I live in North Carolina, my life is boring, so what am I supposed to write about? I'm a movie junkie, and horror movies are all I watch, so my lyrics are inspired by everything from Ed Wood, to Fantasm and Night Of The Living Dead..."
Not to mention a musical cross-section that would shatter any semblance of sanity, ranging from the most obscure outfits on the outskirts of the '80s glam-metal scene, to the sexual ambiguity and punk rock piss and vinegar of Jane County. "What the fuck is going on with all these bands that look normal? Maybe that's why kids identify with them, because they can look like these guys, but I'm from a different school蠭f it didn't look cool, I didn't fucking buy it. They had to be glam, and they had to look cool, and I'm still like that with bands. It's important for people to see that there is something like us today, because a lot of kids don't remember The Plasmatics - I want to do a show like that. I want to bring the danger element back, just the way it needs to be, something new for todayS?Something as simple as singers who don't use mic stands anymore - I'm going to hold mine proud, like a battle axe!"
"But it really doesn't even matter what's going on in music today, because we'd be doing this regardless," says guitarist Tripp Eisen, also of the industrial-metal powerhouse Static-X. "Bands are out there trying to do something with an image, but we're going to go out there and annihilate all of that. We had all the elements in place, but Wednesday was the lynchpin that we needed to really make it happen..."
Murderdolls began as The Rejects more than seven years ago, the brainchild of Jordison long before Slipknot became this millennium's metal revolutionaries. His lineup experienced substantial growing pains before he met Eisen while touring together in '99, and the guitarist - then of Dope - recruited Wednesday as a bassist. Bringing new songs of his own into the fold, it wasn't long before the bassist made the shift to lead singer, and Eric Griffin and Ben Graves rounded out the band's current lineup. A garage band in every sense of the word, they'd played only four shows with the duo of Jordison and Eisen on guitars, and had yet to perform with their new frontman upon the completion of the album. In fact, Jordison didn't even meet Wednesday until the day they entered the studio to record.
"It takes a lot of balls for Tripp and I to do we're doing right now, because there are going to be people that don't understand it and don't get it, but we believe in it that much," says Jordison. "There are some songs on this album that were written in '95, and that's one of the things that I really like about this music - Twenty years from now, this music will still be good, and it won't sound dated at all. There are a lot of songs - like "Die My Bride," "Slit My Wrist" and "Dead In Hollywood" - that have a very metal-esque influence to them, as well as just being punk, glam-metal, blood and guts rock 'n' roll. It's all very trashy, too, just like the people that are in the band..."
"We're taking stuff from our favorite bands and doing it the way that we've always wanted it done, taking it to a place where we've never seen anybody try and take it," continues Wednesday, citing M鰐ley Cr黣, Twisted Sister and Alice Cooper as significant influences on his share of Murderdolls' "violent Sex Pistols" sound. "We're bringing the danger aspect back..."
"I'm a danger addict, I can't get enough of it..." laughs Jordison, "and believe it or not, I'll probably be in more danger with these guys than I was with Slipknot, because I won't be protected by the kit - If those guys ever tried to get me, I could just rise up or move backwards... Now I'll have Tripp's guitar head stuck up my ass, and there won't be anything I can do about it..."
Source: http://www.murderdolls.com/
